What is failure of fit?

Failure of fit is a lack of correspondence between the state of affairs

• described by the propositional content of an illocutionary act, and
• in the world.

• The falsity of an assertive act's contents
• The status of a commissive act's contents as broken by the speaker
• The status of a directive act's contents as unfulfilled by the person from whom compliance is sought
• The case of a declarative act that is unsuccessfully performed

Searle and Vanderveken 1985 95–98

Context for this page:

• Concept module: failure of fit
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): F
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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